Ibibo to drive redbus now

23rd June 2013
Ibibo to drive redbus now
redBus cofounders Phanindra Sama(left) and Charan Padmaraju,

New Delhi, June 23 2013 - India’s pioneering online Bus ticketing business, redBus.in to be acquired by the Indian e-commerce travel player ibiboGroup , on behalf of its South African principals, Naspers.
The combined volumes of redBus.in and ibiboGroup’s existing travel assets makes the group, one of the biggest online travel players in India.
All the travel entities of ibiboGroup (MIH India), including redBus.in, will continue to run independently and operate as separate businesses to drive deep focus. The founders and management teams of each of these entities will continue to build out their businesses.
redBus.in, co-founded by Phanindra Sama in 2006 is India’s number one online bus ticketing platform by all metrics : sales, transaction volumes and available inventory. redBus aggregates bus inventory from thousands of bus operators and makes it available real time to end consumers and agents across the country via its e-commerce portal www.redBus.in .
redBus aggregates 228,000 seats per day, sells more than a million tickets a month and has 600+ full time employees. The core business model of redBus is commission revenues on successful transactions.
Says Phanindra Sama, Co-Founder & CEO of redBus.in: “We are excited to be a part of ibiboGroup. Naspers’ strong belief in internet industry and operating experience in multiple countries will help redBus grow into a renowned brand in the coming years.”

Adds Ashish Kashyap, CEO of ibiboGroup:“Our key motivations to acquire redBus are : Strong management and founding team that will continue to run redBus as an independent operation. Second, significant leadership and market share of redBus in the online bus ticketing space. Third, this marriage leap frogs us to become an even stronger online travel player in India. This gives us significant combined scale in terms of daily transaction volumes and GMV. Lastly, we see this as an exciting market opportunity. Online penetration of the bus market is only 5.7% compared to 28% for air travel, suggesting headroom for rapid future growth”

Pilani Soft Labs Pvt. Ltd. founded by 3 BITS-Pilani graduates, Phanindra Sama, Charan Padmaraju, Sudhakar Pasupunuri owns three products - redBus™, BOSS™, SeatSeller™ serving the fragmented bus industry in India. redBus™ is consumer facing travel brand enabling customers to buy tickets on internet, on mobile, and through call centers. BOSS™ is ERP solution built for bus operators. Over 800 bus operators in India use BOSS to manage their inventory. SeatSeller™ is GDS for bus inventory distribution. Over 10,000 retail agents and 100+ corporates including the OTAs use SeatSeller to sell bus tickets to their customers.
ibiboGroup was founded by Ashish Kashyap in 2007. The company is one of the top E-Commerce group’s in India in terms of volume and value of transactions.
Founded in 1915, Naspers is a leading multinational media and internet group with operations in more than 133 countries